If you haven't read any of NCCPR's critique of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's September, 2010 child welfare series, we hope you'll start with our overview, here, and then return to this page for updates.
UPDATE, MARCH 21: CR’S DOUBLE STANDARDS ARE SHOWING
Although it’s not directly related to the Journal Sentinel’s coverage, readers of this Blog might be interested in a double standard on the part of the group that so arrogantly calls itself Children’s Rights (CR), particularly since Milwaukee children are coming out on the losing end.
When it comes to documenting the true rate of abuse in foster care, CR is trying to hold the child welfare system in Oklahoma to a much higher standard than the one it agreed to in Milwaukee. Why do Milwaukee foster kids deserve less protection?
Details are in our main Child Welfare Blog.
UPDATE: MARCH 8, 2011: "Churnalism"
at the Journal-Sentinel
Churnalism is a relatively new term for a relatively old, unfortunate practice in journalism. The British website Churnalism.com defines it as “a news article that is published as journalism, but is essentially a press release without much added.”
A classic example is the Journal Sentinel’s “story” about a report produced by the group that so arrogantly calls itself “Children’s Rights.” The report supports one of CR’s obsessions, requiring grandma and grandpa to comply with all sorts of hypertechnical licensing requirements before they can take in children as kinship foster parents. I discuss the flaws in the report and in CR’s whole approach on NCCPR’s main Child Welfare Blog.
What is so disappointing about the Journal Sentinel’s coverage is the extent to which the newspaper’s story resembles CR’s press release. In fact, they’re nearly indistinguishable. So once again, the Journal Sentinel becomes a no-dissent zone, this time from CR’s point of view.
It looks like the only place the Journal Sentinel even tried to go for another perspective was the Department of Children and Families. According to the last paragraph of the story:
The Journal Sentinel contacted the Department of Children and Families, which oversees the state's foster care system, for comment on the report, but a spokeswoman did not provide a response before the deadline for this story.
That begs the question: How much time was DCF given? Did CR release the report late in the day so that it would be difficult for anyone to respond? While one can’t stop CR from playing such games there was nothing to stop the Journal Sentinel from waiting a day and using that time to round up other points of view.
UPDATE JAN 26, 2011: Another good column in Milwaukee Magazine
Erik Gunn wrote a second Milwaukee Magazine column about the Journal Sentinel series for the December issue of the magazine. That column was available on their website, but was deleted during a redesign, so NCCPR has posted it here.
UPDATE, DEC. 17: J-S Editorial Board hears the Disney version
When you’ve spent 17 years litigating a class-action suit you pretty well have to claim success, or you look like idiots for having brought an ineffective suit in the first place.
So it’s no wonder Marcia Lowry of the group that so arrogantly calls itself “Children’s Rights” – as if the “right” children crave most is to be removed from everyone they know and love, told the Journal Sentinel editorial board that things are getting better.
Lowry’s contempt for birth families is clear from the photo caption – describing her coming to Milwaukee for, among other things, a meeting with foster parents children and “foster program associates.” Apparently the thought of including birth parents was too repugnant for CR to bear.
In fact, the 17 years of litigation has nibbled around the edges of reform – things certainly aren’t as horrible as they used to be. But that’s not much of an accomplishment.
Certainly not compared with, say, Alabama (yes, really, Alabama) which also went through litigation for a long, long time, but came out at the other end with a child welfare system now widely recognized as, relatively speaking, a national model. (See for example, this story in The New York Times.)
What’s the difference? Simple. Alabama had the good fortune not to be sued by CR, which, much like Crocker Stephenson, always ignores the elephant in the room – children needlessly taken from everyone they know and love. Instead, they were sued by the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law which designed a settlement that rebuilt the Alabama system to emphasize safe, proven alternatives to foster care. The independent court monitor for that settlement found that even as entries into care declined, child safety improved. (Bazelon’s legal director is a member of NCCPR’s unpaid Board of Directors.)
So CR brags that the number of children trapped in foster care on any given day in Milwaukee is down. But that can be accomplished simply by kicking enough kids out at age 18 with no home at all or by rushing to terminate parental rights and adopt out children who never needed to be taken away in the first place. But she says nothing about the fact that Milwaukee still tears apart families at rates far higher than most American cities (including more than four times higher than Chicago where another much better consent decree built on family preservation has made children safer, again according to independent court monitors).
Part of the reason for the bias that has permeated Crocker Stephenson’s child welfare reporting is the fact that he’s swallowed CR’s party line hook, line and sinker – even flying to New York to meet with Lowry and her colleagues shortly after he started covering these issues.
Let’s see if he bothers to attend the event sponsored by Welfare Warriors next month – the local premiere of a video documentary about parents fighting to get their children back in one of the few cities that’s actually worse than Milwaukee. It’s on January 27 at MATC. Of course, then he’d have to sit and listen to a whole lot of birth parents whose cases he hadn’t pre-selected.
UPDATE, DEC. 9: A dissent from Welfare Warriors: The long, long road to publication
Whatever my concerns about news coverage, the opinion pages of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel long have been had an unusually good approach to dissent. The paper has been more open than most not only to points of view that are unpopular, but also to those that may run contrary to the views of the editorial board and/or the news side.
Over the past eight years, the Sunday Crossroads section has published several op ed columns from NCCPR.
Even in the case discussed below, involving an op ed submission by Pat Gowens of Welfare Warriors published on Dec. 5, I don’t think that the Journal Sentinel’s Editorial Page Editor, O. Ricardo Pimentel, was out to stifle debate or squelch dissent. In the end, a lot of what Gowens wanted to say came through – and, as will be seen below, I agree with two of Pimentel’s changes.
Pimentel spent a lot of time going back and forth with Gowens and trying to shape the piece into something he could live with. At one point he even sought a second opinion. In contrast, I can think of plenty of opinion editors who simply would have hit the delete key as soon as Gowens’ submission arrived, and never even given her the courtesy of a response. Others would have made changes unilaterally and Gowens wouldn’t have found out until she opened the paper the following Sunday.
Nevertheless, the whole process reveals a lot about how biases involving class and what Gowens aptly calls “social status” influence not only child welfare, but how journalists make their decisions.
Gowens got in touch and told me the “back story” after reading the article about Censored in Milwaukee in the current issue of Milwaukee Magazine. (Not yet available online, so I can’t provide a link.)
Gowens originally submitted her op ed column all the way back on Oct. 6, not long after the Journal Sentinel child welfare stories were published. What followed was a prolonged process of watering down, as Pimentel decided how much truth Gowens would be allowed to speak to power, and a disturbing amount of bending over backwards to make sure power had its say.
Pimentel’s basic concern, he said in an e-mail to Gowens, was that “you simply make too many sweeping statements.” Even after lots of editing, Pimentel dropped his plan to run the column on November 13, the same day as the judges interview discussed in my previous post. Instead, he wrote “I’m going to hold yours for another week to give the Bureau, the main target of your op ed, the chance to pen their own oped for us.”
The two columns didn’t actually run until Dec. 5 – and the Bureau’s defense got better play on the main opinion page of the Journal Sentinel website that day.
To understand the problem here, just try to imagine if it were the other way around. Suppose that after the Journal Sentinel stories suggesting that BMCW, which already takes away children at one of the highest rates among large metropolitan areas, wasn’t doing enough to split up families, BMCW had submitted an op ed touting its wonderful work. Or suppose a couple of judges had written a piece defending BMCW and the fine work done by the courts. Does anyone seriously believe Pimentel’s reaction would be: “We can’t possibly run anything like this until we get a response from the Welfare Warriors!”?
After going back and forth for two more weeks, Pimentel decided it was take-it-or-leave-it-time telling Gowens:
I very much want to run this. I think it contains a point of view worth hearing. But, still, even with these edits, you are overly broad. To read your piece, one would imagine that there isn¹t a good case worker in the entire bureau and that everything judges, da¹s and guardian ad litems do is wrong and harmful. I got another pair of eyes to look at the piece and he concurs that it still sweeps with too broad a broom. So, I¹ve done another edit and this is what I would like to run. They are your words, trimmed, reorganized and with qualifiers injected. I think this is our last chance. OK with you to run it this way?
Those of us who do this for a living know that there are certain comforting qualifiers that have to go into an op ed piece criticizing a child welfare agency, That’s easy for me, since I know the unwritten rules, and I actually believe those qualifiers. But Gowens didn’t play by those rules.
Even without the requisite qualifiers, however, the idea that Gowens’ opinion piece leaves the impression that “there isn’t a good case worker in the entire bureau and that everything judges, da¹s and guardian ad litems do is wrong and harmful” is, well, a matter of opinion. It doesn’t read that way to me. But even if Pimentel is right about that, why is it a problem for readers of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to read an opinion piece which may leave the impression that based on what the child welfare system looks like from where Pat Gowens stands, she thinks everything that system does is harmful? It’s particularly hard to see a problem when such a piece runs side-by-side with one that suggests, to me, that the Bureau is the most kindly, benevolent, and competent agency on earth.
As for the specifics, I’ve created a table of sorts. In the first column, the Gowens op ed as published. In the second, the op ed as she originally wrote it. Then Pimentel’s explanation for the changes, as passed on to me by Gowens. And finally, my own comments on the changes.
Since I have no idea how to put a table like that onto this Blog, I’ve put it in this .pdf file
I sent this post and the link to the file to Pimentel for comment. This is his response:
You're right. My intent was not to censor or stifle. And I don't think I did that. What ran was substantively her piece, without the broad assertions. When Gowens called me to talk about the larger piece that had run in the Journal Sentinel, I suggested she write an oped. She took me up on the offer. It was originally intended to run with the judges' Q&A but after comparing both it was clear that her target was mostly the bureau.
You're right about something else. This can be a subjective process. What a writer might think is "fair" an editor might not. But we don't run anyone without editing. Some will require more than others. But even the judge's comments didn't run in their entirety. They were excerpted from an hour-long discussion.
In the end, we have to apply our journalistic standards of fairness, accuracy and balance. That's what this editing process was about. Censoring or stifling commentary would be about not allowing the piece to run at all. I don't think I'd do anything different - from asking her to write it, to editing it to comport to what we believe our standards demand, to running it.
Thanks for the opportunity to comment and for the work you do.
And now, those interested can click here to compare Pimentel’s journalistic standards to Gowens’ to mine, and to your own.
UPDATE, DEC. 5: Here come the judges
Evidence that they wield rubber stamps instead of gavels comes straight from an interview with the Journal Sentinel editorial board.
Last month, the Journal Sentinel published excerpts from an interview with two judges. Children’s Court Judge Marshall Murray and Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Mary Triggiano met with the editorial board.
The board asked some pretty good questions. They, and the people of Milwaukee, deserved better answers. Still, the answers they got were unintentionally revealing, and they ought to scare the hell out of anyone who thinks that families need judges who wield gavels instead of rubber-stamps.
Question: Do you think you are given enough information by the bureau to make a good decision?
Murray: Who has the best information? It's the bureau. The D.A.'s office have their own investigators on criminal matters. They don't have investigators on child detention matters. So the person who has the best information is the social worker. We think at the detention (hearing), we are getting the best information. We get history. We get more than the incident that may have brought this family to court.
Triggiano: I think (in) 98% of the cases, I've found that bureau's information is satisfactory to make a decision to keep those children outside the home at that particular point in time. [Emphasis added.]
So Triggiano actually says out loud that she thinks when the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare wants to remove a child from the home or keep that child out of the home, BMCW is right 98 percent of the time.
Then, your honor, with all due respect: What do we need you for? Why bother with hearings and trials and all that extra work at all – we already “know” BMCW is always right.
Sorry, Judge Triggiano, but no one is right 98 percent of the time about almost anything – least of all something as complex and difficult as figuring out what’s best for a child. The very fact that you’ve been left with that impression should be telling you that you’re not hearing all sides of the story.
BMCW KNOWS BEST
Oh, but wait. According to Judge Murray there’s no real need to hear all sides, because one side almost always knows best. Even if parents had decent lawyers who really fought for them, what possible chance could they have when the judges already have decided that their information can’t possibly compete with BMCW – which has the “best” information, and whose caseworkers are so saintly as to be immune from any normal human frailty or bias?
But have no fear. According to the judges there is a check and balance against BMCW – but not defense attorneys. No, it’s the District Attorney’s office!
Question: Here's an allegation we've heard. Judges, district attorneys and guardian ad litems rubber stamp the positions of caseworkers. The Children's Court judges automatically accept into evidence the "gossipy" Children in Need of Protection or Services report. The bureau never has to prove any of its allegations.
Murray: If I were to accept that statement, then I would have to accept the fact that the D.A.'s office is putting information before me that they can't prove. The parents have a constitutional right to a trial by jury if they want to challenge that information, and we appoint attorneys for those parents who are not able to afford them because we think that their rights are paramount. [Emphasis added.]
Leaving aside, for a moment, the whole issue of quality of defense counsel, try to imagine the uproar that would follow if a criminal court judge said a district attorney would never put before him information he couldn’t prove. Deciding if the case has been proved is the whole point of having judges in the first place. Again, the question arises: Why are we bothering with a court process at all, if you’ve already made up your mind that if the D.A. says it, it must be so?
And leaving aside the issue of D.As and caseworkers lying outright, which is rare, but happens, and shading the truth, which happens more often, it is human nature for all of us to see and hear what we want to hear or expect to hear. That’s why it’s so urgent that judges here a careful well-prepared case from all sides so they can balance those competing, selective visions of events.
But that doesn’t happen in Milwaukee County, or most of the rest of the country. Because counsel for parents is little more than a sham. Typically, in Milwaukee, it means someone who only sees the parent five minutes before the first court hearing, who has barely spoken to the parent beforehand, and probably is paid next to nothing. Occasionally, I’m sure, they do great work anyway. But most of the time, a cardboard cutout in a three-piece suit would provide about as much “representation.” And it’s clear from their comments that this is all Judges Murray and Triggiano really want.
TAKE MY CHILD – PLEASE!
But don’t worry. According to Judge Murray, much of the time, the parents really want it this way:
In fact, the judges’ message to parents throughout the conversation can be boiled down to: Give in and grovel. Indeed, it was fascinating to see how, when the editorial board asked whether parents could get a fair shake at all stages of the process, including whether the child should be taken away at all, the judges literally didn’t hear it that way, assuming the question applied only after removal:
Question: So can parents get a fair shake if the feeling is that, if we're going to err, it will be on the side of child safety? Can struggling parents ever cross that hurdle?
Murray: Yes, you can work to get your children back, but you need to engage the process early on. Because that time clock starts ticking as soon as that child comes into our court and I take custody of that child. …
And later, Judge Triggiano:
Those cases that come to us (the court), do they get a fair shake? I think the process itself on the front end ensures that they have opportunities to reunify with their children
Of course, part of that process involves providing the help families actually need to reunify. But all over the country, what parents actually get are cookie-cutter service plans revolving around “counseling” and “parent education” when often, what they need is concrete help like housing and child care.
Indeed, in Milwaukee, a comprehensive study singled out housing as a crucial factor keeping families apart, and noted that caseworkers seemed oblivious or deliberately “in denial about the problem.” Apparently, so is Judge Murray:
Question: The bureau doesn't provide services. They outsource it. Do you have confidence in the quality of those services outsourced?
Murray: I do because the judicial branch, the judges have kind of oversight over the bureau. If I'm not satisfied, then I should ask questions. I shouldn't make a decision without getting an answer to my question. And our judges are training locally and nationally on these issues. Because the bottom line is, it's going to come back to you: Why did you make this decision?
Except it won’t come back – unless the child is returned to her or his own home and something goes wrong. In all those hundreds, perhaps thousands of cases where children are needlessly removed and kept in foster care and terrible harm is done to the child’s psyche, no one is going to ask any questions.
YOU’RE ONLY DAMNED IF YOU DON’T
There are two reasons for that: First, the entire process is secret. And second, in Milwaukee, the person who should be asking those questions, Journal Sentinel reporter Crocker Stephenson, has proved to be the biggest cheerleader for taking away even more children. When it comes to wrongful removal, he’s simply not interested in those mistakes.
Judges know full well that they can rubber-stamp hundreds of needless removals and, while the children will suffer terribly, their own jobs are safe. Send one child home over BMCW objections and have something go wrong and Crocker Stephenson will be scapegoating the judge on the front page – and the judge’s career could be over.
When it comes to taking children from their homes, judges, much like caseworkers are not damned if they do and damned if they don’t. They’re only damned if they don’t.
What really should be upsetting the Journal Sentinel editorial board is the absurdity of having to take judges’ word for what goes on in their courtrooms. The one sure way to know would be if reporters could walk in any time, unannounced, and see for themselves. But in Wisconsin, and most states, that’s not allowed, even though the evidence from states with open courts is overwhelming that opening such hearings does none of the harm that critics predicted. (For details, see NCCPR’s Due Process Agenda.)
Yet oddly, the editorial board either didn’t even ask the judges about this or didn’t find the answers worth publishing.
As for the questions they did ask, as I said, they were pretty good – except for the fact that the board fell into Crocker Stephenson’s trap – portraying the issue entirely in terms of rights of parents versus children – with keeping children in their own homes portrayed as preserving parents rights, (“can parents get a fair shake…?”) while rushing to terminate parental rights was portrayed as, “talk[ing] the children’s side.”
They even fell back on the most dangerous phrase for children in the child welfare lexicon, referring to tearing apart families as “err[ing] … on the side of child safety.”
But it’s not the children’s side to the thousands bounced from foster home to foster home emerging unable to love or trust anyone – when they never needed to be taken away at all. It’s not “err[ing] …on the side of child safety” for the one-quarter to one-third of children abused in foster care, and it’s not the children’s side to those made “legal orphans” in the rush to terminate parental rights.
The editorial board showed they understood that in their editorial on Oct. 1, when they wrote: “the guiding principle should be children’s welfare, which isn’t simply a matter of parental rights vs. children’s rights” [emphasis added]. I hope they’re not forgetting already.
UPDATE, DEC. 2: Another great story from Milwaukee Magazine
Milwaukee Magazine Pressroom columnist Erik Gunn revisited the issues raised by Censored in Milwaukee in his column for the magazine's December issue. It's not available online yet - but I'd say it's well worth reading it the old fashioned way - by buying the magazine. UPDATE, JAN. 26, 2011:The column now is available online.
UPDATE, SEPT. 28: Milwaukee Magazine weighs in
Erik Gunn, who writes the Pressroom column for Milwaukee Magazine and its website, devotes this week's online column to the Journal Sentinel stories, and NCCPR's response. UPDATE: OCT. 1: The Journal Sentinel finally publishes an editorial on the series, and, as is discussed in this post, it's surprisingly good.
